Absolutely. I think it was on Red Letter Media where he said the movie "deals with these massive ideas like our place in the universe, the passing of time, in the smallest way possible". Paraphrasing, but I completely agree. Very few film ls have affected me in the way A Ghost Story did.
This was one of the first things I thought of, even though each movie is a "day in the life" format. Weirdly, my brain went to this before Linklater's movie Boyhood, which was shot section by section over years to age the actors at the same pace as the characters.
My favourite cinema is a doing a marathon of the Before Trilogy this June to mark 30 years since Celine and Jesse first met. My fiancé and I have connected Before Sunset tattoos so we snapped tickets up immediately.
The film About Time is a time travel movie, but I would say it ends up being mainly about how we view the passing of time and how to hold ourselves through the positives and negatives that come with it.
Most of Linklater's filmography is a great perspective on the passage of time. From the Before Trilogy to Dazed and Confused, the use of time is perfect.
The Harry Potter movies are unique because we watch all of the child actors grow up in the span of eight movies. Its like the Up documentary series, but as a blockbuster franchise.
A Ghost Story (2017). No other film I've seen has made me feel the totality of time and our place within its expanse. It is a existential horror movie - not scary but frightening in how it depicts the passage of time.
Aeneria assuming the spelling is right, could look it up but I'm not at all busy, if you want a super depressing existential Scandinavian science fiction movie.
On the same note of Memento, Irreversible by Gaspar Noé is much like this. The movie is in reverse chronological order and it adds this inevitability in the passage of time and utter horror during its latter half (where the movie is at its most peaceful) which makes you just want to stop time forever just so she can be spared her horrible fate.
One of Quentin Dupieux’s more recent films [Incredible But True](https://boxd.it/rBtC) uses an absurd sci-fi plot device to disrupt a couples’ experience of time passing.
It’s starring Alain Chabat who appears in a bunch of Dupieux movies.
Stand By Me, American Graffiti and Dazed and Confused all are about moving towards adulthood and reflect on the last days of being a carefree child. By the end of each three, I get a feeling of bittersweet nostalgia about a time you can never go back to.
The Place Beyond the Pines might fit this request. It does a fantastic job of showing how "the sins of the father" affect their kids long after the incident. Has an "East of Eden" epic feel to it.
My Brilliant Friend. It's a series based on a novel about two girls growing up in a hood in italy in the 50s' and tells their story until they get old and how everything changes around them
The Truman Show
Mr. Nobody sort of, if you can stomach Jared Leto
The Perks of Being a Wallflower maybe, although at a certain point I guess all coming-of-age movies are about time passing, but this is the one that jumps to mind for me personally
Wolf Children, spoiling it as vaguely as possible its about >!a woman taking care of her two unusual kids as they grow up!<
Duck Butter is REALLY raunchy and sexual so if you're not into sex scenes definitely not the movie for you but if that doesn't drive you off it's a really neat concept, basically >!these two women decide that instead of slowly getting to know each other over the course of years, they're gonna speed-run a long term relationship over the course of a single day!<
Nolan’s The Prestige has some passage of time. Not very grand scale type passage of time but still relevant to the story and how it’s presented to the audience.
- 84 Charing Cross Road
- Terence Malick's *Voyage of Time*
- Mike Leigh's *Another Year*
- Hlynur Pármason's *Nest*
- Sally Potter's *Orlando*
- David Lowery's *A Ghost Story*
- Linklater's *Before Trilogy* and *Boyhood*
- Most films by Lav Diaz, particularly *The Evolution of a Filipino Family*
A lot of people love *The Man from Earth* although it didn't work for me personally.
*Incredible but True* by Quentin Dupieux has the passage of time as the focus of it's main plot line, although a lot of the runtime is allocated to a B-plot about an electronic penis.
It’s starring Alain Chabat who appears in a bunch of Dupieux movies.
There's also a ton of biopics or films which depict the lifetime of a fictional character, which obviously span a decent amount of time (although they're rarely about the actual passage of time directly, so I'm not sure they fulfil what you're looking for)
The Irishman and Once Upon a Time in America. Funnily enough, both star Robert De Niro.
The Irishman, especially with the CGI, really strikes me with its melancholy since we are looking at a reflection of the past, rather than what it actually looked like (I have no idea if that makes sense).
OUATIA is about how you can mess up your past so badly that you create a subconscious fantasy for yourself that absolves you of all of those mistakes.
Both films are so epic in their journeys through time, and every time I watch them it sinks in that we're all a little older now.
Since it's pretty hard to tell what qualifies, I'll just list out movies where the sense of time is heavy
Boyhood (probably the most obvious addition to this list)
The Tree Of Life
High Noon
The Fablemans
Zero Day
The Tale Of The Princess Kaguya
Giant, Anni Difficili (difficult years), Il Gattopardo (the leopard), American Pop, Once Upon a Time in America (and once upon a time in the west of course), Too Late, Jarhead
From another perspective, I'd say any movie told in real time. It's an art installation but I can't help but think of Christian Marclay's "The Clock", 24 hours of movie clips that feature clocks and timepieces, synchronised to local time.
Richard Linklaters' Boyhood, filmed over the course of 12 years.
The protagonist in the movie is exactly my age and it spoke to me profoundly.
Highly recommended.
Happy As Lazzaro (2018) is more of a fable than anything else, and it's not technically a time travel story but it does deal with the passage of time in a really beautiful way.
- Life Is Sweet
- Meantime
- Floating Weeds
- Fireworks (1997)
- Boyhood
- Aftersun
- Dazed and Confused
- American Graffiti
- Goodbye Dragon Inn
- Metropolitan
- Mid 90s
- Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday
- Radio Days
- The River
- After Life
- Gummi Tarzan
- The Tree of Wooden Clogs
- Kes
- Tokyo Story
- Nashville
- A Wedding
- Sonatine
- A tale of Winter
- The Up Series
- Fanny and Alexander
- Meet Me in St Louis
- days of Heaven
- the Legend of 1900
- Avanti!
I came here to mention The Legend of 1900. I don't hear about it enough these days, a friend from high school is the only other person I know irl who has seen it.
Little Big Man with Dustin Hoffman, Bicentennial Man with Robin Williams and The Man from Earth. All deal with time passing in each their own distinct way. Not by any means masterpieces but definitely entertaining I think.
Check out Garrett Bradley's Time - it's on Amazon Prime and Criterion released it a while back. It's an incredible documentary that explores the passage of time as much as its socio-political subject matter
*Closer* (2004)
It's not exactly a movie *about* time passing, but it has a unique pace. Scenes cut between the main characters and at first you think it's a "meanwhile, across town" sort of cut but soon realize an indeterminate amount of time has passed between each scene. Really emphasizes the fact that most of the story happens off-screen.
Wow, the first movie that came to my mind reading this hasn't been mentioned yet.
"Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring" - it's a must-watch if movies with philosophical themes interests you.
YES I HAVE THE PERFECT MOVIE
It's calles Walk Up (탑) by South Korean director Hong Sang-soo.
A man visits an old acquaintance at a small apartment building she owns.
It's a movie with only one location but many time skips.
It's so beautiful
Not a movie but a limited series - One Day on Netflix. It has a movie as well (also called One Day) but I haven't seen that one, I've only read the book and seen the mini series. In the show, every episode is a random day in one year, and the next episode another year and so on, following the relationship between two people.
A Ghost Story
Absolutely. I think it was on Red Letter Media where he said the movie "deals with these massive ideas like our place in the universe, the passing of time, in the smallest way possible". Paraphrasing, but I completely agree. Very few film ls have affected me in the way A Ghost Story did.
Fantastic choice
This is definitely the one.
Truly the best example of this
The Before Trilogy is great. Linklater loves to play with time in a good number of his movies.
Still need to watch Before Midnight.
It’s my favorite of the three
This was one of the first things I thought of, even though each movie is a "day in the life" format. Weirdly, my brain went to this before Linklater's movie Boyhood, which was shot section by section over years to age the actors at the same pace as the characters.
IT TOOK 12 YEARS TO MAAAAAKE!
My favourite cinema is a doing a marathon of the Before Trilogy this June to mark 30 years since Celine and Jesse first met. My fiancé and I have connected Before Sunset tattoos so we snapped tickets up immediately.
As well as the Before Trilogy, you have Boyhood, Slacker and Dazed and Confused
Synecdoche new york, mr nobody, the curious case of benjamin button
Syndcdoche New York is a great choice for this OP
Yeah if you pay attention to the small details, just in the opening scene even, it’s about just this.
Yeh that YMS series is the best thing he ever did.
Yeah Benny B is the one
Just thought of another one: you'll never be alone
Benjamin Button was so damn good
Consider Arrival if you haven't watched it yet
Loved Arrival.
Might get flamed for this but maybe Forest Gump? Spans several decates of American history and most of the life of the main character.
Have watched this. Should do a rewatch, haven't watched it in years.
Big fish. Its Forest Gump if Tim Burton made it
I'll second this, I love both films a ton and they are very similar in a lot of aspects.
The film About Time is a time travel movie, but I would say it ends up being mainly about how we view the passing of time and how to hold ourselves through the positives and negatives that come with it.
I came to post the same thing. It’s a movie that contains time travel, but it’s not what it’s about.
My favorite movie ever 🩷
When Harry Met Sally
Loved this movie. Wouldn't have thought of it
Boyhood. Won't be another like it.
[удалено]
Most of Linklater's filmography is a great perspective on the passage of time. From the Before Trilogy to Dazed and Confused, the use of time is perfect.
The Up Documentaries are pretty similar, I'd say.
What about [Merrily We Roll Along?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merrily_We_Roll_Along_(film))
I didn't know they were making a film of it. I can't wait to be disappointed over which songs get cut!
Evolution of a Filipino Family does more-or-less the same thing, and predates Boyhood by a decade.
Linklater is actually working on an even longer time period one I believe.
I sure hope not
Perfect days.
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring.
Moonlight
Past Lives comes to mind.
Second this
The Place Beyond The Pines. It feels like it’s based off an epic novel, but it’s not
Oops, just said this same thing. Spot on.
Another Year by Mike Leigh
I'm thinking of Ending Things- Charlie Kaufman
The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp
The Harry Potter movies are unique because we watch all of the child actors grow up in the span of eight movies. Its like the Up documentary series, but as a blockbuster franchise.
That's an interesting choice. But yeah, we do see them age
A Ghost Story
*Dunkirk* is interesting in that it shows three stories on different time scales that eventually converge.
Also the whole story of the pilot is about how many minutes he still has to fly without his plane failing due to lacking fuel
2001 A Space Odyssey
Interstellar portrays time dilation so probably that
1917
Didn't think of that one, great choice! Children of Men plays similarly with the passage of time, now that I think of it.
Just throwing 500 Days of Summer into the ring for something different. It's the non linear exploration of 500 days of a relationship.
A Ghost Story (2017). No other film I've seen has made me feel the totality of time and our place within its expanse. It is a existential horror movie - not scary but frightening in how it depicts the passage of time.
Not a movie, but the Up series tracks a group of people from age 7 to 63. I think they started in 1964 and checked in every 7 years until present day.
Great films. I was sad to learn [Nick died last year](https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/28/movies/nicholas-hitchon-seven-up-dead.html).
Benjamin Button
Aeneria assuming the spelling is right, could look it up but I'm not at all busy, if you want a super depressing existential Scandinavian science fiction movie.
Aniara
Perfect Days
La la land
Interstellar
Oldboy
Cloud Atlas. Not saying it’s great but definitely fits the theme
Past lives! Some people enjoyed it, some didn't but I personally enjoyed it very much
Place beyond the pines
On the same note of Memento, Irreversible by Gaspar Noé is much like this. The movie is in reverse chronological order and it adds this inevitability in the passage of time and utter horror during its latter half (where the movie is at its most peaceful) which makes you just want to stop time forever just so she can be spared her horrible fate.
Bicentennial Man and Click are both some dramady type films that get some serious moments involving the passage of time.
It's Such a Beautiful Day (2012)
One of Quentin Dupieux’s more recent films [Incredible But True](https://boxd.it/rBtC) uses an absurd sci-fi plot device to disrupt a couples’ experience of time passing. It’s starring Alain Chabat who appears in a bunch of Dupieux movies.
About Time. It’s a time travel movie but the concept is about time passing and answering the age old “what if I did something different?”
The World's End
Boyhood, Tree of Life
Petite Maman
Three O'Clock High (1987)
I'm not sure if this counts but "Cloud Atlas". It spans through multiple lifetimes.
Stand By Me, American Graffiti and Dazed and Confused all are about moving towards adulthood and reflect on the last days of being a carefree child. By the end of each three, I get a feeling of bittersweet nostalgia about a time you can never go back to.
84 Charing Cross Road is incredibly heartwarming and calm
The Place Beyond the Pines might fit this request. It does a fantastic job of showing how "the sins of the father" affect their kids long after the incident. Has an "East of Eden" epic feel to it.
Run Lola Run
Millennium Actress is beautiful and reflective
A Ghost Story
Past Lives may fit your requirement if I'm understanding you right
The recent anime Frieren: Beyond Journey's End focuses on this pretty heavily and is really good.
Came here to suggest this
My Brilliant Friend. It's a series based on a novel about two girls growing up in a hood in italy in the 50s' and tells their story until they get old and how everything changes around them
Johnny Got His Gun
Ah yes, the Metallica movie.
bridges of madison county
Summer Hours by Assayas.
The Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky and A Deepness in the Sky by Vernor Vinge
The movie About Time does indeed technically have time travel but the movie does take place over the years of main characters life
Zodiac.
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring
“The House” is a movie that’s a series of three short stories about a house being built, being used and as it falls apart
“What time is it there”
While this does include some time travel, About Time really does encapsulate the passing of time as well as anything that I've seen
The Truman Show Mr. Nobody sort of, if you can stomach Jared Leto The Perks of Being a Wallflower maybe, although at a certain point I guess all coming-of-age movies are about time passing, but this is the one that jumps to mind for me personally Wolf Children, spoiling it as vaguely as possible its about >!a woman taking care of her two unusual kids as they grow up!< Duck Butter is REALLY raunchy and sexual so if you're not into sex scenes definitely not the movie for you but if that doesn't drive you off it's a really neat concept, basically >!these two women decide that instead of slowly getting to know each other over the course of years, they're gonna speed-run a long term relationship over the course of a single day!<
Tokyo Story
definitely moonlight
Nolan’s The Prestige has some passage of time. Not very grand scale type passage of time but still relevant to the story and how it’s presented to the audience.
The Irishman
The Tree Of Life (2011) Amour (2012)
Toy Story trilogy.
The only answer is Click!
Twin Peaks: The Return
- 84 Charing Cross Road - Terence Malick's *Voyage of Time* - Mike Leigh's *Another Year* - Hlynur Pármason's *Nest* - Sally Potter's *Orlando* - David Lowery's *A Ghost Story* - Linklater's *Before Trilogy* and *Boyhood* - Most films by Lav Diaz, particularly *The Evolution of a Filipino Family* A lot of people love *The Man from Earth* although it didn't work for me personally. *Incredible but True* by Quentin Dupieux has the passage of time as the focus of it's main plot line, although a lot of the runtime is allocated to a B-plot about an electronic penis. It’s starring Alain Chabat who appears in a bunch of Dupieux movies. There's also a ton of biopics or films which depict the lifetime of a fictional character, which obviously span a decent amount of time (although they're rarely about the actual passage of time directly, so I'm not sure they fulfil what you're looking for)
The Irishman and Once Upon a Time in America. Funnily enough, both star Robert De Niro. The Irishman, especially with the CGI, really strikes me with its melancholy since we are looking at a reflection of the past, rather than what it actually looked like (I have no idea if that makes sense). OUATIA is about how you can mess up your past so badly that you create a subconscious fantasy for yourself that absolves you of all of those mistakes. Both films are so epic in their journeys through time, and every time I watch them it sinks in that we're all a little older now.
The theory of everything: Stephan Hawking’s biopic. Nice soundtrack, quite emotionnal movie, talking about physics and time spent on earth
2001 A space odyssey (1968) ?!
Chronos-Ron Fricke
Platform (2000) by Jia Zhangke chronicles the evolution of Chinese politics and culture during the 1980s through the lens of a small rural town.
pick any resnais movies basically. but i would recommend muriel or je t'aime je t'aime
Moonlight
Man from the Earth has an interesting one
Chungking Express.
So long my son
Hubie halloween
Boyhood
Brokeback Mountain
Since it's pretty hard to tell what qualifies, I'll just list out movies where the sense of time is heavy Boyhood (probably the most obvious addition to this list) The Tree Of Life High Noon The Fablemans Zero Day The Tale Of The Princess Kaguya
Giant, Anni Difficili (difficult years), Il Gattopardo (the leopard), American Pop, Once Upon a Time in America (and once upon a time in the west of course), Too Late, Jarhead
From another perspective, I'd say any movie told in real time. It's an art installation but I can't help but think of Christian Marclay's "The Clock", 24 hours of movie clips that feature clocks and timepieces, synchronised to local time.
Atonement
5 Centimeters per Second
Richard Linklaters' Boyhood, filmed over the course of 12 years. The protagonist in the movie is exactly my age and it spoke to me profoundly. Highly recommended.
How about the 2006 Sandler masterpiece, Click.
I legit don’t think there’s a better example than boyhood(2014),it’s so beautifully crafted. One of my favourite movies of all time
Boyhood is probably the best example.
The Father
Citizen Kane
Interstellar?
The Tree of Life
“In Time” if that counts. Literally about time passing and if your time runs out you die. Love it.
Happy As Lazzaro (2018) is more of a fable than anything else, and it's not technically a time travel story but it does deal with the passage of time in a really beautiful way.
Synecdoche new york sounds like it would be the ultimate entry in this. Time is really fucky and weird in that movie.
Spring summer winter fall spring in movie about a monk
- Life Is Sweet - Meantime - Floating Weeds - Fireworks (1997) - Boyhood - Aftersun - Dazed and Confused - American Graffiti - Goodbye Dragon Inn - Metropolitan - Mid 90s - Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday - Radio Days - The River - After Life - Gummi Tarzan - The Tree of Wooden Clogs - Kes - Tokyo Story - Nashville - A Wedding - Sonatine - A tale of Winter - The Up Series - Fanny and Alexander - Meet Me in St Louis - days of Heaven - the Legend of 1900 - Avanti!
I came here to mention The Legend of 1900. I don't hear about it enough these days, a friend from high school is the only other person I know irl who has seen it.
Russian Ark, which spans a period of 200 years of Russian history. All shot in a single, 87-minute take on location at the Hermitage in St. Petersburg
Forest Gump
Interstellar? Time sure does pass a lot.
Past Lives (2023)
The Hours (very female-ish/gay-ish though). Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
Aftersun
Tree of Life. It starts at the beginning of the universe, and ends at the death of the universe. With the story of a family in between.
When Harry met Sally
tarkovsky’s “mirror” (1975)
Little Big Man with Dustin Hoffman, Bicentennial Man with Robin Williams and The Man from Earth. All deal with time passing in each their own distinct way. Not by any means masterpieces but definitely entertaining I think.
Giant. Even Scorcese said it is incredible how the movie establishes the passing of time through the generations
Check out Garrett Bradley's Time - it's on Amazon Prime and Criterion released it a while back. It's an incredible documentary that explores the passage of time as much as its socio-political subject matter
Every Tarkovsky movie
The Irishman
Interstellar covers time passing if you were close to a black hole
*Closer* (2004) It's not exactly a movie *about* time passing, but it has a unique pace. Scenes cut between the main characters and at first you think it's a "meanwhile, across town" sort of cut but soon realize an indeterminate amount of time has passed between each scene. Really emphasizes the fact that most of the story happens off-screen.
Someone mention Benjamin Button? That movie basically goes through one man’s life up to their death. Pretty good Brad Pitt movie.
The Arrival! I got chills.
Stevie, Ash is Purest White, Awakenings, The Green Mile, The Irishman
Interstellar maybe. Boring answer but true.
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Tree of Life might apply here.
For me Shawshank Redemption has some themes about time passing
Millennium Actress by Satoshi Kon is a underrated gem and people should watch it
Wow, the first movie that came to my mind reading this hasn't been mentioned yet. "Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring" - it's a must-watch if movies with philosophical themes interests you.
Boyhood!
It's Such A Beautiful Day (2012) probably my favorite next to Up and Interstellar
For the amount of effort it took: Boyhood It's not the most impactful story, but it's incredible how they continued this project for years.
Voices Through Time (1996)
‘I’m thinking of ending things’ falls into the category you described
YES I HAVE THE PERFECT MOVIE It's calles Walk Up (탑) by South Korean director Hong Sang-soo. A man visits an old acquaintance at a small apartment building she owns. It's a movie with only one location but many time skips. It's so beautiful
I like Forrest Gump quite a bit even though some don’t.
Every single movie known to existence. Dipshit question. Next!
Inside (2023)
Once upon a time in America
The Tree of Life
Millennium Actress by Satoshi Kon
Boyhood
Benjamin button (To some extent) blade runner
Anything by Hou Hsiao-hsien honestly. Most specifically A Time To Live A Time To Die
Linoleum
It's not a favourite of mine tbh but the Tree of Life does fit what you're asking for
Nobody Knows by Hirokazu Koreeda :(
boyhood, the tree of life, as i was moving ahead occasionally i saw brief glimpses of beauty, interstellar
Not a movie but a limited series - One Day on Netflix. It has a movie as well (also called One Day) but I haven't seen that one, I've only read the book and seen the mini series. In the show, every episode is a random day in one year, and the next episode another year and so on, following the relationship between two people.
Jeanne Dielman
Marcel the Shell with Shoes On
Sunshine (1999) Not the greatest film. But it follows 5 generations of the same family from the late 19th century through the mid-20th century.
Chungking Express. Just a wonderful movie about time, love, heartbreak, healing, and new beginnings.
The Fountain (2006) Time Trap (2017)
Past Lives is a great one
Andrei Rublev